Global science portal using federated search

A new portal that crosses both international and database boundaries was launched recently for people interested in scientific sources that are unavailable through commercial search engines such as Google.

WorldWideScience.org was developed by the Energy Department and the British Library, along with science and technology organizations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands. It employs federated search technology ' a search method that simultaneously executes a query against an array of databases, then aggregates and ranks the results ' and gives users a single entry point for searching far-flung science portals in parallel with only one query.

'Scientific research results are archived globally in a plethora of sources, many unknown and unreachable through [the] usual search engines,' said Raymond Orbach, Energy's undersecretary for science. 'This international partnership will open up this vast reservoir of knowledge in a rapid and convenient manner, something that will add great value to our existing knowledge.'

WorldWideScience.org follows the model of Science.gov, the searchable portal for science databases of federal science agencies. WorldWideScience.org was developed and is maintained by Energy's Office of Scientific and Technical Information, which also played a central role in the development of Science.gov. The participating countries contributed databases that can be searched through the portal.